


Without the protection and infancy's guard

by dimtraces



Series: The nightbrother prince [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-30 01:29:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12643365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimtraces/pseuds/dimtraces
Summary: Savage always thought that the story of the Nightsisters raising aboywas just a drunk’s rumor.





	Without the protection and infancy's guard

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: fear of sexual violence.

Savage is sitting and exhausted and proud in the kitchen when the first knock comes for him. It’s not-there, almost respectful, and he takes no notice. Tonight, there are better things to care about than company, and worse things to fear.

The knock hits the door again, and Savage doesn’t hear it this time either, not really, and it’s probably just the wind driving a couple of stones against his door anyway—against _their_ door, now. For the first time in almost a year, he is not alone. The winds drive stones against their door, as they tend to do that in the choking hot summer nights, and so it wasn’t a knock: it was just the storm.

There must be a storm.

There must be a reason for the itching in Savage’s bones, something more than the sweat running stickily down his uncovered chest and the new baby finally asleep on his bed. Something more than the clingy afterglow of the sun. Something more than the diffuse unease coming closer and closer. _Watch your brother,_ his bones say, _watch, the witch comes,_ but he already knows he needs to protect his new baby. He’s listened to these warnings every day for a month now. He’s probably feeling the coming storm, he decides, although there’s no gusts driven in through the cracks in the shutters, not yet. No thunder.

He doesn’t hear the third knock: he’s listening with great care, but the sounds that he cares _about_ are different. A dropped leather strip, or shuffling. A creaking bed. Crying, the ultimate sign that his little brother’s woken up and lost his teething pacifier again—that one’s unmissable, head-splitting, for the seconds until Savage gets to the bed and the hours until he calms his bother. _Soon, I will be faster_ , Savage decides. _I will be better._

Soon, Feral won’t wake up crying anymore.

There are no cries tonight just yet. Savage’s been sitting on the table, expecting Feral to wake up, for many beats of his hearts now. He lost count a while ago, and mercifully, the baby is still fast asleep. _Or maybe, it’s not mercy_ , Savage isn’t quite sure. His fingers drum the table. He’d have been doing something, at least, if Feral was awake. He wouldn’t just be waiting for it, anticipation crawling like insects under his skin— _something is coming, white and greedy and strong_ —holding onto the threaded bone needle and the already-cut sleeve parts for a tiny leather shirt that he should be stitching together but, somehow, can’t.

Savage would still be bone-tired, if Feral was awake—he will be tired for the next two years at least, all the old and young nightbrothers advised him—but he’d be moving. It would be better, to not just feel his purpose but to fulfil it, too.

_He is to protect his brother_ , the bones whisper.

_(“A nightbrother is always ready for his child’s needs. He anticipates them,” Brother Viscus warned a month ago, holding Feral to his chest and not handing him over just yet. “The Choosing was successful. Your older brother hasn’t survived, the Sister told me, and you could move in with me if you are worried but… You are already fourteen, Savage. You are responsible. Teach this child well.”)_

Feral’s teeth have maybe finally grown in, or tonight’s heat is sedative, or maybe it’s just turned Savage’s brain too sluggish for sound to enter. For his fingers to move. Either of those. The susurrating of the small-flies is closer than the not-knocks, anyway; already, another two greedy insects have settled on Savage’s arm. They will eat, or he will kill them. It does not matter, except for the tickling on his arm feeding the nervous calm inside his skin. The bites will itch for days— _will_ _layer into the strange fear inside his skin_ —but still, lifting a hand would be a pointless effort, when another two flies wait to replace them, and three after that, and… it is pointless, but it is movement. It is something to do. Savage crushes them easily.

There’s no need for hurry, for Savage to stop feeling the leather he’s picked up again and to start sewing, although Feral’s growing slightly faster than expected and it’ll be weeks rather than months before he outgrows his current clothes completely. Still: there’s no need to work just now, even though there’s no telling whether the next night will be a bad night, again. What the itching in the air means.

There’s no knowing how much time Savage will have tomorrow, when there is so much to do, but right now, Feral sleeps and Savage can… _exist_ , in this rare lonely moment without a wailing, teething toddler.

_(“The first one’s a bad year,” Dudgeon commiserated three days ago with his still-breaking voice, when Savage had begged off the hunt yet again because he was so, so tired. It was better that he stayed home, anyway: he’d have felt bad foisting off his crying child on any of the Elders. He knew, logically, that they’d raised brothers too, but it felt wrong regardless, to leave his family. Things feeling wrong without reasons: it is the way of the summer. Soon, the Sisters will return._

_“Second’s worse. Third, too. Honestly, the first days weren’t a worm-hunt either, and just wait until you get to ten,” his friend had whined, and Savage had stopped listening to him then. Feral is always crying for food or company or the air to cool, and Savage just wants to lie down. Still: Feral gnaws his fingertips. Feral is small. Feral_ trusts _him.)_

Another knock, and it is harder, impatient, and Savage wonders whether he’s closed the shutters tightly enough to withstand the storm. He double-checks them, usually, and the door too, but he might not have done that today. He can’t remember. He usually can’t remember, though, or hasn’t been able to for half a year now, and it’s probably nothing, and he’s comfortable right now. He’s so tired. He should accept that he cannot sew tonight, and sleep.

The next knock wakes up Feral.

Harsh, ugly beats now against the front door, now; loud, deeply unhappy wails behind him. Someone is out there. It cannot be denied anymore. If Savage was thinking, he’d go for the door first. It would be the respectful thing to do, if he knew who is coming— _and he knows, he hears the knock pattern and he listens to the hiss in his bones and somewhere deep in his mind he knows and he fears_ —but he does not want to see. This isn’t the first late night visit. Besides, Feral is louder, and Savage knows what to do with him. He’s been learning how to calm him. He’s been waiting for a chance to calm him, for the need to calm him, all night, and so the bed is where he goes.

Savage picks up his brother and rocks him, for hours or minutes, and babbles until the cries turn to hiccoughing. The knocks stop. The itching inside Savage’s skin grows into hornets and wound-flies. Then, he turns around.

Mother Talzin fills the room as if She owns it.

She does.

Feral, clutched tightly against his chest and wailing again, is no barrier against Her eyes. No muscle in Her pale face is moving, but She is looking at him—has been looking at him for minutes or longer now—and Savage wishes it was winter. He wishes he was wearing a shirt. He wishes he was a year younger, that his voice hadn’t broken yet, or that Feral was ten feet tall and big enough to hide behind. _They don’t take brothers from one bloodline twice after another_ , he thinks, but can he remember that clearly or is it children’s talk? He’s old now, old enough to live alone with a child and old enough to be Chosen. This is no trial. There is no-one to fight, and Savage could never prove he is worthy of the Mother. He can’t even take any of the Elders in a fight yet. It doesn’t calm his hearts.

“This is Savage,” Brother Viscus says. He’s standing behind Her, tense and sorry. He was sorry a month ago, too. He must have been knocking; it sounded just like then.

In the gap between Viscus and the Mother, holding onto Her hand, there is a young boy.

_He’s too young to be in the company of a Nightsister, or much too old_ , that’s what Savage notices first. Nine and short, maybe, or six and tall. _He’s too old, and the Mother is here, and I should not be reminded of Brother Viscus handing over Carve’s son._

The boy is wearing a Sister’s deep red robes, and a brother’s small horned face.

Curious, angry yellow eyes.

Patterns, red and black, and Savage has never seen the boy before. He knows every child in every hut two villages over. He’s refereed leather ball for all of them. He’s never seen this child before.

There have been rumors in the village for years, drunk-tales. Stories of the Prince of the Nightsisters, of the Mother’s boy: the Son of Dathomir Reborn, living and trained in magic in the Women’s city. The Return of the First Nightbrother, as red as Wrath was and just as powerful. Stinger always claims to have seen him, but Stinger always drinks, and the idea never made much sense. Why would Women raise a boy? A boy. It makes no sense to think of a boy doing magic. What use would the Mother have for a nightbrother child?

Still, he exists.

He’s wearing their deep red robes, and a nightbrother’s face.

He’s inside Savage’s hut.

The legendary Return of the First Nightbrother is looking at the baby in Savage’s arms and frowning, deeply and unhappily and confused, as if he’s never seen anything this small and loud before. As if this is the first time he’s ever seen another nightbrother.

“This is Maul,” the Mother says.

She pushes the myth-boy forward.

He doesn’t want to leave Her, that much is obvious. _Maul is red but he is not Wrath. The First Nightbrother stood before the Woman he slept with and demanded She release their child, and his Return drags his feet while he walks towards another nightbrother and his bottom lip trembles. He—_ Savage grimaces. Yes, he’s sleep-deprived, but he should not think these unkind thoughts about a child. He smiles at Maul, and he hopes it looks warm and steady, and not muddled and headached and terrified. He probably doesn’t succeed. Maul continues looking unhappy.

“A man called Sidious will come to Dathomir soon. I have foreseen it,” the Mother says. “You will hide my son until he is gone, Savage.”

She doesn’t leave after Her order. She stands in the room, although Savage cannot tell how long it is, only that he wishes She would not look at his bare chest and his small hut and his baby, and that Feral would cry a little more quietly, and that Maul would stop his fine trembling.

Belatedly, Savage realizes that She must be expecting some kind of verbal reaction.

They both know he could never deny Her—She is the Mother, and he is a nightbrother—but on the day a new child is fetched and given into the hands of his new big brother, there always is a ceremony, a vow, and words have power. Words reassure the baby that he will be adored, and soothe his terror at being separated from the Woman who gave him life— although he is too little to consciously understand them yet, or to know that one day, another Woman will kill him—and the words remind the brother of his new responsibility.

No Sister has ever been present for any such ceremony, not recently and not since Wrath went to the Moons and took his child into his arms, but Savage shouldn’t have assumed that this means that Talzin doesn’t know about it. She is the Mother, after all. She knows.

It’s fitting that Savage should betray the nightbrothers’ tradition of secrecy before Her and the Return of Wrath.

Maul is old enough to understand not just the intent of his promise, but the words too. Savage wishes he’d been given a day to think about what he’ll tell him. Maul is terrified, and Savage should reassure him. The vow will reassure him. If only he could remember any words. It feels wrong, dismissive, to use the words he gave Feral, but he’d settle for them now, if only he could remember the phrasing.

“Maul,” Savage says. “Welcome, brother.”

There is no reply.

“I will protect you, and—”

“I shall retrieve the boy once Sidious has forgotten about him,” the Mother says. “He is a wily, vile old man, and you shall be careful, Savage. Trust no-one. Ensure that no-one sees Maul, and do not talk to anyone. You will hide my son well, or you will suffer,” and then, finally, She leaves. Viscus follows Her.

Maul does not say anything for three days.

**Author's Note:**

> Title's from Passover by Joy Division.
> 
> Yes, I know I shouldn't be writing yet another fic but I need a space for figuring out Talzin and Maul's relationship for reasons, and this is the setup.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
